of our people, developed and fostered by the spirit of our
institutions; and the enlarged variety and amount of interests,
productions, and pursuits have strengthened the chain of mutual
dependence and formed a circle of mutual benefits too apparent
ever to be overlooked.

In justly balancing the powers of the Federal and State
authorities difficulties nearly insurmountable arose at the outset
and subsequent collisions were deemed inevitable. Amid these it
was scarcely believed possible that a scheme of government so
complex in construction could remain uninjured. From time to time
embarrassments have certainly occurred; but how just is the
confidence of future safety imparted by the knowledge that each in
succession has been happily removed! Overlooking partial and
temporary evils as inseparable from the practical operation of all
human institutions, and looking only to the general result, every
patriot has reason to be satisfied. While the Federal Government
has successfully performed its appropriate functions in relation
to foreign affairs and concerns evidently national, that of every
State has remarkably improved in protecting and developing local
interests and individual welfare; and if the vibrations of
authority have occasionally tended too much toward one or the
other, it is unquestionably certain that the ultimate operation of
the entire system has been to strengthen all the existing
institutions and to elevate our whole country in prosperity and
renown.

The last, perhaps the greatest, of the prominent sources of
discord and disaster supposed to lurk in our political condition
was the institution of domestic slavery. Our forefathers were